[mikech]

in retrospect, letting him take back the raise might've been overkill. the right thing to do would've been push and show. but i just reacted instinctively, and i decided to let him make the decision. if, after showing me his cards but without seeing mine, he still wanted to play the hand to completion, then we would've played the hand. however, i wanted to give him an out: if he could figure out for himself what was going on, then he gets his raise back.

keep in mind that i hadn't even acted on his raise yet, and i didn't show my hand. yet i asked him to forfeit the pot. not many ppl are gonna muck the 2nd nuts there, but he did. he was not only smart enough to figure out what was going on, but he apparently was also a good enough judge of character to realize i wasn't trying to shaft him. he declined to play out the hand, he forfeited a pot with over a thousand dollars in it and folded A5 on a 234r flop. kudos to him, i let him pull back his raise and shook his hand.

also, this wasn't about softplaying. i play hard against all the regulars in the bellagio game, and i'd never played with this particular guy before in my life. this was a unique, bizarre situation, one which i didn't want to take advantage of. you can all say i gave up ev or whatever, but who cares, poker's not just about money to me.

also, there's a twist ending to the story, but i won't bother going into detail here, since nothing's been nailed down yet, and i didn't do what i did for any reason other than the fact that i felt it was the proper thing to do. but suffice it to say that good deeds are NOT necessarily always punished.